Q: What has receiving the CfA Fellowship award meant to your professional career?

I received this fellowship as my first postdoc and feel very fortunate to have the freedom to work on what I choose, the ability to travel freely, and access to all the CfA facilities. I hope that the work I do here will provide a good platform for my future career.

Q: Has your experience at the CfA been what you were expecting, what things have been unexpected?

I think the hardest thing to get used to at the CfA is its size. There have been multiple times when I've realized--sometimes too late--that there is a person at the CfA who is an expert in some problem I'm struggling with. Despite there being so many great scientists around, it has been a little hard to learn how to engage with people. However, after a year here, I'm starting to know a pretty broad range of people and feel more comfortable with walking into their offices.

Q: What's a typical day like?

I typically have pretty uninterrupted work days. I go to talks a couple times a week, go out to lunch once or twice a week, but otherwise have very few meetings. However, I travel a lot for observing, conferences, and collaborations, so between the travel and the preparation for it, typical days are rare.

Q: How much do you work with the other graduate students, postdocs, and other principle investigators?

My research topics are somewhat outside of the norm here, so my interactions have been a little less than I would like. Still, I have multiple collaborators within the CfA, and was approached by a graduate student to assist with a project he was working on, which has already resulted in a publication.

Q: In general, how would you characterize the social life at the CfA?

The large postdoc community is actually quite social. I sometimes go out with the POETS group for drinks on Friday or go to Dave Latham's wine-tastings. There are numerous postdoc parties and social sports activities (cricket, basketball). However, the CfA as a whole isn't a very social place in the sense that you often don't know the people walking down the halls.

Q: What's been the evolution of your research since you arrived at the CfA?

I've started numerous new projects since I've been here--perhaps too many! The ability to get time on MMT and Magellan has influenced some of those.

Q: What is like to live and work in Cambridge?

Cambridge is a great place to live. One of the things I like best about it is that I live within walking distance of many of my friends. I bike to work and am very happy that cars are so unnecessary here. The lunch options around the CfA are limited but great; I especially like the Formaggio Kitchen.

Q: How much interaction have you had with other divisions throughout the CfA?

Just because of the size of the CfA, I have tended to meet more of the people that sit near to me and are in my division. However, thus far my collaborations have mostly been with people outside my division; and I have gone to talks in all the divisions.

Q: What's been your impression of the various seminar series at the CfA?

There are great talks here all the time. It gets pretty overwhelming sometimes; I gave a lunch talk on a day with three other talks. It's hard to go to all the talks that sound interesting. The colloquia are generally really good and I rarely have regretted going to them, even when they are outside my areas of interest.

Q: What has been the highlight of your first year at the CfA?

Going observing at Mt. Hopkins! The MMT is a fantastic telescope and the mountain is a truly beautiful place.